


Based on Latest Reports

by Carbon65



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Birds of Prey (Comic)
Genre: Accurate computer programing, Banter, Barbara Gordon PhD, Barbara and Jason are bros, Barbara and Jason read a lot, Canon Typical Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Non-Linear Narrative, Police Brutality, White Supremacy, just another night in Gotham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27473623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/pseuds/Carbon65
Summary: It’s a ridiculously busy week and tonight was supposed to be her day off. She and Dick had talked about going to the concert at Waterfront Park. And then, work called. And then, Alfred called. And now, it’s late, she’s tired. Dick has a kid. And Jason has a Nazi. And Barbara has the beginnings of a headache.
Relationships: Barbara Gordon & Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon & Jason Todd, Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	Based on Latest Reports

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this](https://pentapoda.tumblr.com/post/131178830043/no-one-asked-for-this) tumblr image which was asking for a reverse bang. I’m not sure why it struck me, but here we are four weeks and 18K words later. So, umm, hopefully it’s the kind of bang you were wanting. Maybe not. IDK.
> 
> * * *
> 
> This was beta'd by the brilliant [thelittleredheadedmusician](https://thelittleredheadedmusician.tumblr.com/) ([PennySparrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennysparrow) here). All remaining mistakes are entirely my fault.

In the gray light of the morning, it’s easy to have regrets. It’s easy to discover the things you thought were monsters were just shadows of ordinary things. It’s easy to think of the things you did in the dark last night, when the world was a half shadowed kaleidoscope of adrenaline, exhaustion and conviction, as foolhardy. The gray light of morning is when consequences come home to roost.

Barbara Gordon makes a point not to face gray pre-dawn consequences. She doesn’t like those subtle shades; dawn gray is just another shade of “time to be asleep”. It’s been a hard night, though. The kind that she thought she put behind her a long time ago. It’s been a long night, and she’s not sure how she’s supposed to go to sleep. She’s not sure how she’s supposed to get up and go to work in a few hours. Last night was supposed to be a night off. Yesterday was supposed to be a day off, but after a seven-to-seven at the library, today is supposed to be a much more sedate ten until six, but she’s not sure if she’ll ever make it out of this bed. She’s exhausted from not sleeping, exhausted from worrying, exhausted from the kind of night that isn’t supposed to happen as often any more. She’s not supposed to have twelve hour Sunday shifts. She’s not supposed to get called in. Dick isn’t supposed to get in that kind of trouble…

...At least he’s safe now. He’s stretched across her like some kind of man-boy-octopus hybrid. His limbs are tangled in the sheets and searching for contact. One hand is wrapped around her ankle, she thinks, and she can feel the faint pressure of his other arm across her lap. She runs her fingers through his hair absentmindedly, petting him because she is exhausted. She can pet Dick or she can cry or she can pet Dick and cry… the choices are really endless. What she can’t do is get up and face the harsh, cold realities of the day. The weak yellow gray light of Gotham’s early mornings might chase away some people’s night terrors, but for Barbara and Dick, it just means there’s a new class of monster to deal with. One with different rules and more power and a tendency to play tricks. She doesn’t expect to feel safe leaving Dick alone again until full dark, when the world is theirs again. 

Then again, last night was supposed to be hers, and look at how that went.

* * *

Twelve hour days are not her friend. She doesn’t think twelve hour days are anyone’s friend, but her body tolerates less bullshit than most people’s do. Twelve hour shifts on your day off should be illegal. Especially because your boss forgot to schedule around midterms again and all the student library aids backed out and you’re single and not full time and therefore can’t possibly have Sunday plans and must need the money. 

She… she kind of does need the money. Not that she wants to admit that to her boss. Or Bruce. Or anyone else. But, she needs a new wheelchair, like soon, which insurance will partially cover, and her phone is getting old, and her car is threatening to give up the ghost. She’s got limited savings, almost no retirement fund, and shitty university health insurance that’s designed for people whose medical needs are birth control, antidepressants, and a flu vaccine. So, the money she will get from the shift trumps her Sunday plans which were to do nothing. Efficiently. She will pay for it later this week. She knows she will. She needs to rest and recharge and go hit shit with escrima sticks at the Clocktower and maybe do a sheet mask. So, she spends her “day off” answering questions, arranging Twitter data into something cohesive, answering more questions, sorting out the student worker’s reshelving responsibilities, doing some re-reshelving, debugging someone’s uncommented, god awful “tidyverse and libraries for suckers” base-R code, and more data cleaning. She is tired. She does not want to stare at a computer screen anymore, unless it’s a movie on her laptop in bed. 

So, tonight, she has plans. They involve the curry she picked up around the corner, a pint of ice cream, and something with Colin Firth. They are Plans. Not only are they plans, they’re important. She’s seen far too many good scientists burn out because they couldn’t or wouldn’t find a balance between work and the rest of their lives. It’s important to her that she not do that at either of her jobs. So, Oracle has standing nights off (usually Wednesdays and Sundays) and Barabara has standing days off (usually Sundays and Mondays with the occasional Wednesday or Thursday thrown into the mix). 

She’s got _What a Girl Wants_ all cued up, the curry is waiting for her on her TV tray, and she’s just done in the bathroom when her phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Ahh, Miss Gordon.” Alfred. “Master Dick knows it’s your book group, but things are getting tense with the new dog.” 

Yes they speak in code. Yes, it’s a dumb code. Yes, Damian did try to bring home a(nother) dog last week. 

Her first response is anger. It’s her fucking day off. She put it on the goddamn calendar, and they know not to call her on her days off. It’s part of the whole boundaries thing that she and the university therapist spent so much time talking about. Divorce, parental death, grad school, sudden disability… she’s had her share of therapists over the years. Boundaries have been a recent theme. And because Maggie is right, Barbara works hard to build and keep boundaries around work. Which is why they’re not supposed to call her from _that_ number on her night off, unless it’s an emergency.

And, Dick and Alfred wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t. She glances at the clock. It’s already after nine, the patrol and protests have started. She’ll have to move fast.

“I’ll be over, thanks for the heads up.”

* * *

Dick stirs on the bed, kicking off one of his socks. He usually sleeps with only one sock on his foot, a weird quirk she doesn’t understand. Does only his left foot get cold? Or does only his right get too hot? She tries to remember that and… she doesn’t want to admit that she’s forgetting what BEFORE was like. She remembers living there the way she remembers old apartments. She remembers living there and occupying that body. Now, she sleeps with thick, clean socks on both her feet and her still feet never kick them off at night. ...She thinks Dick has stripped them off though, his agile toes finding something and removing it without knowing.

The local news is on. They must have fallen asleep watching some movie and dozed through it. And now, they’ve got Gotham Channel 2. Normally, it’s some mix of Traffic Report, Bat Report, and some weird local trivia. Gotham Channel 2 tries really hard to pretend that they’re still in some small town where all news is good news. They do a lot of human interest stories. They highlight GU football, somehow managing to ignore the Jets and the Giants, as though the teams don’t exist. 

“--st night’s--,” A reporter in a blue windbreaker explains aloud before Barbara shushes him. “The event at Waterfront Park was attended by over four thousand people.” She doesn’t want to hear about the festival at Waterfront park, or the concert, or the fireworks. She’s glad Gotham had its good day. She’s only a little bit bitter that she didn’t get to play yesterday. With the long hot, summer of simmering aggression drawing to a close, she wants time to relax and unwind. The concert was supposed to let her do that, right before she got called into the library and then her other job.

She’s not mad, not really. Just… tired. Well, exhausted and unable to sleep, and frustrated. And today is Monday. It’s supposed to be her day off and she’s been called in, which means another six days before she can start to recover. She leans her head back against the headboard. It was supposed to be a chance. And, instead, the night had gone a very different way.

* * *

Barbara’s Mac Mini and her TV flicker to life under her fingertips and she enters her password. She starts her VPN. Then her second VPN. Logs into the Watchtower server core, and spins up the desktop she uses. At the Clocktower, she has a bank of three monitors, two mechanical keyboards, and a fiber optic link to the Watchtower so working locally is no different than working on the floating spacebase. Her apartment set up is subpar, but given everything going on, there isn’t time to pee, put on pants, get over to the Clocktower and be Oracle from there. 

Because Oracle lives at the Clocktower. Barbara Gordon doesn’t. Barbara Gordon rents an accessible three room apartment in a neighborhood close enough to the University district that landlords claim it when they post ads but close enough to the Narrows that the rents are affordable and everything on the bottom two floors have bars and grates. She used to have two other roommates until the shell company that owned it bought the Carlees out and got them into places that are honestly better fits at the same or lower price. So, now, it’s just Barbara with the kitchen and the living room that used to be Carliegh-with-an-i-e’s bedroom and the office that was Carly-with-a-y, then Carli-with-an-i, and then Carley-with-an-ey’s room, except she went by Chuck. The whole thought process makes her miss all the Carlee’s, even Chuck, almost as much as she misses her monitors.

It takes fifteen minutes to get herself situated for the night. She sets up a series of keyword maps on Twitter, using code she helped develop during her postdoc, those fly to the left hand side of the TV, GCPD’s scanner a running log on next to it. She stacks the Bat’s maps on a second screen, all six of them situated side by side. She can pull up one if she needs to. She connects to the audio channels, real time transcription login in and syncing. Those go on another desktop. Her AI is good, but not as good as it could be. She needs to remind Bruce that WE should throw more money at better subtitles. User generated subs would be a really good training and test set if he knew a company willing to open that to their user base.

She goes to send a text to Black Canary’s com, realizes that it’s Dinah’s night off too, and pulls out her phone. She works hard to keep her work and home life separate, more so than most people. It’s just hard when her work station is in her bedroom and there is such a small group of people who understand what this life is like. She’s going to be super pissed if whatever is going on gets in the way of her tentative frenemies brunch with Harley next week. She needs to talk to someone else who’s trying to live in this world, okay? She has a few friends who got tenure track jobs. She has a few friends who went to work for start ups and some who went to work for museums. She _needs_ a doctor friend who knows what it’s like to be in Gotham and what it’s like to survive the Joker. So, if anyone fucks up her brunch, she’s going to have things to say about it. Also, they got a reservation at that place on Second that does a mango bellini and a cold breakfast pizza and it is amazing.

She plunks down her thermos of green tea, her water bottle, a mug of hot water for instant miso soup (aka vegetarian meat tea) and transfers onto her couch. Bruce decided that fitting in the back of a Prius was not a virtue in a couch and that she needed a new one so he and Clark Kent took her to West Elm and Pottery Barn and half a dozen other furniture showrooms until they both found one they could agree on. 

She pulls her headset on. “Nightwing to Oracle?” The words are almost immediate.

“Oracle to Nighwing, go.” Tabs flick and his map pops up.

* * *

“Police are still searching for ten-year-old Taylor Dryer,” a new reporter in a red windbreaker announces, standing in front of the sign for Waterfront Park. 

She reaches for the remote, ready to click the channel, but Dick stirs. “Tay?” He murmurs.

“Shhh,” she tries to soothe him. And herself. “Tay’s okay.”

They’re normally both light sleepers. Her restlessness is training and necessity. When your body requires conscious care to do things others take for granted, you learn quickly. She’s good about shifting her weight during the day. It’s harder at night. In the hospital, and then out with her dad, she thought she’d never get the hang of the waking up every few hours to shift position. It was one more thing about her new life she couldn’t imagine. And, she won’t admit it to anyone, but she cried herself to sleep more than one night after the nurses came in to efficiently change her position. She wanted to be able to move herself, and she couldn’t. And now, this is one more inconvenient reality about her body. One more thing she does because she has to. It was not innate, but it’s part of her now.

She doesn’t know about Dick. She wishes she knew him as a little boy. She wishes she could ask his mother. Barbara doesn’t know why, but the fact that Aimee has her wife’s baby picture on her desk always makes her a little bit jealous. (Aimee has a lot of other pictures on her desk, including their wedding, their three beautiful children, a goldendoodle and a ferret, but she also has Helen’s baby picture.) If she could, Barbara would ask Mary Grayson how they kept Dick from falling out of bed when he was a child. Even now, Dick is kinetic, at sleep but not at rest. At the manor, in his big king sized bed, she’s seen him do a full 360º rotation. Hell, at the manor, she’s suffered through his attempt to do a 360º rotation, partner in bed or not. And, when things are rough, he can wake from whatever weird position he’s moved himself into at a moment’s notice, light on his feet and ready to fight. She thought that was just how he was - always moving, always ready, energetic and infallible.

It was only after they started dating - after they got serious and moved in together and were willing to bare themselves soul and body that she learned that when Dick feels truly safe, he sleeps like the dead and nothing can rouse him.

* * *

“Oracle to Nighwing, go.” Tabs flick and his map pops up.

“‘I’ve got a situation. Eleventh and Cady Stanton.”

“What kind of situation?” She taps a few keys, and the maps around Nightwing start to populate. She has a twitter feed for local hashtags. (A lot of #MulletMinx in that area. She totally hadn’t wanted to see that band before she was called into work. You’re thinking of some other redhead.) There’s topology and sewage and land ownership and businesses and busses. A few keystrokes and she’ll get the layers integrated. Or something. The fucking VPNs always make it tedious, but the wired internet Bruce got her helps. It’s just not as fast as the Clocktower, which is annoying when every second counts. “Which side of Eleventh?”

She hears the faint rumble of music behind him. “Outside the park,” he admits. “I know we were supposed to…”

“Yeah, tell that to my day job.”

“I’d love to. But, umm….” She knows that tone.

“What’s wrong, Wing?”

“I’ve got a kid with me.” 

She pulls up his feed. There’s a young blond person in a big black sweatshirt next to Nightwing. In the dark, the figure is mostly a shock of hair and that hoodie. Oracle captures the best picture of the child’s face that she can, and then starts a job on the JL server to see what else they can pull out of Nightwing’s back footage and social media. It will take time to run, computers aren’t magic despite popular beliefs, but it will do. 

“So take them back to their folks.”

“She kind of said she ran away.”

“Shit.”

“Who are you talking to?” The kid is young.

“What’s your name, honey?” She asks, trying to find a twitter video or a periscope live stream or _something_ in the area. She wants another angle. The pictures of Dick’s butt in spandex are always nice, but she could use a shot of the crowd and more angles on the kid. (Buzzfeed’s ultimate ranking bracket was correct, Nightwing does have the best vigilante ass and no she’s not biased). 

“Tay.” 

“Hi Tay, you can call me Oracle,” she says, because she has to say something. “Can you tell me your last name, or anything?”

“I can, but I don’t want to.” Tay sounds petulant. 

“Okay, can you tell me why you don’t want to?” She sort of wishes Bruce was on this call instead of her. Bruce has a weird ability to talk to kids.

“Not here!” Tay sounds scared.

That’s enough. Tay is scared.

“Okay, I’m gonna help Nightwing find a place and then we’re going to talk.” 

“Did you mean that to sound ominous, O? That totally sounds ominous.” Dick is back. 

“Shut up, Boy Blunder.”

* * *

Barbara gives up on the TV and clicks it off. It doesn’t help. Dick the cephalopod moans and contracts in on himself, and Dick the man slowly swims to the surface. When he blinks back whatever roused him - silent reporter, dream, memory, or nightmare - his eyes are tired. He moves gingerly, his left side bruised but no ribs broken. The bandage on his arm slips, and she doesn’t know if it’s road rash or something that will require stitches. He bandaged himseful up last night, not her. By the time the bandaging had been happening, she’d been slightly delirious with too many hours of work and not enough hours away from her computation and she had been rocking back and forth with NPR turned on super low in the background so she could trick her brain into sleeping. She could have rallied. She hadn’t wanted to then. She needs to now.

Dick kisses her mechanically and goes to take his patented five minute morning shower. She tires to remember his pupils. Were they okay? She thinks so. She hopes he’s just exhausted and on autopilot. Baraba doesn’t want to have to remind Dick about how he quit the police force. 

She knows that there’s little love lost between the GCPD and the Bats. She knows that her father, as commissioner, had a relationship with the Bats, but it was closer to a mutually beneficial co-parenting with very different styles than anything else. They had a tentative truce. She knows - Dick knows - plenty of officers resent the Bats for being able to do what they can’t. But, she and Dick also live with a reality her dad hasn’t quite come to terms with: for every cop who resents Batman for overreaching and playing judge, jury and metaphorical executioner, there are two more who think he doesn’t go far enough. If she’s honest with herself, she was never quite sure where Detective Richard Grayson fell. Nightwing let Dick play that same role. He could do things outside the law - or maybe within the law but outside the law enforcement system - especially when he didn’t think the law was doing enough. Nightwing has not been a favorite of the police, recently. Nightwing doesn’t have patience for all the non-calls that happened during Dick’s tenure on the force. There were so many times the blue wall came down and someone tried to get away with tax evasion, domestic abuse, excessive force, or hate speech. Nightwing made sure it comes to light and the non-call becomes a call and there are consequences.

Except now, she’s left with the watery sunlight of a Monday morning and an injured ex-Detective Richard Grayson whose brain hasn’t reminded him yet that he doesn’t have to be at Police Headquarters by nine am sharp today. She follows him into the bathroom, and settles in to do her morning business. At one point, they were shy. Being grown up means a different kind of intimacy.

Dick sticks his head out from behind the glass shower door, dripping water onto the mat where it turns red. It was a cuter trick before it got stained with real blood one too many times, but she hasn’t gotten around to replacing it yet. “I don’t have to go to work today.”

“Nope,” she agrees. “You don’t.”

“I… I have to find a new job.”

She makes a kind of motion with her hand.

“I have to publicly reconcile with Bruce or find a new job.”

Nothing to disagree with there. 

He looks dejected, wet and bruised and slightly sudsy.

“Can you be depressed _in_ the shower? I’d like hot water too.”

“You could join me.” 

She thinks about it. Takes off her tank top. They both need comfort. Also, this way they’ll both wash and condition instead of one forgetting and the other doing it twice.

* * *

Once she gets the jobs running searching for the kid, the next thing she can manage is to find back up. Normally, she’d be ahead of the game, but not tonight, so it’s one task at a time. She knows it’s not strictly necessary that Dick have backup, but in situations like these, two people are usually better than one. 

She’s got Batman and Hood out tonight, doing whatever the fuck they’re doing. Neither is going to be super happy about being brought in for a kid who isn’t in danger or with people shooting, but it’s a normal night from what she can see. Lots of people down at Waterfront Park (which is why Nightwing ended up there), and then the usual shit in town. Usual city shit, even, not usual Gotham shit. And, if things do go Gotham weird, she’d like someone else there. So… Batman or Hood. Except that with a little girl (she thinks), maybe she should tap Steph. 

“Oracle to Nightwing, how’s Tay doing with you?”

“She approached me,” he says. “No issues.”

“So, if Hood or Batman met you?”

“You’re sending us Hood?” His voice pitches up with alarm.

“I’m thinking about it. Trying to figure out my options. I’ll tap Batgirl if I need to, but she has that… that thing.” Dick had helped Steph study for Shakesphere class all semester. He knows her exam schedule as well as Barbara does.

“That should be fine, I guess,” he says. “You got us a spot, yet?”

“Nope. Everything okay?”

“There’s a group of guys over there… Current and ex GCPD mostly.”

She pulls up the twitter map and sees the hashtags. There’s a collection over by the left of the stage who are using the stack of Alt-Right hashtags to broadcast their assholery to the world writ large. Tonight it’s mostly #BlueLivesMatter and #MAGA, but there’s a fair mix of #1488 and a similar ilk mixed in. She has a whole file on this bullshit that has to be updated regularly, a task that makes her want to bleach her brain. It’s a hole she hates descending into. She knows they all fight to keep their souls, but this one… this is a battle she hates. 

“No trouble?” She prompts.

She can hear the shrug and the words he doesn’t say. She misses the days when the things they were looking for were corruption and excessive force, not domestic terrorism.

* * *

“You know, it’s more useful to shower _after_ you exercise,” Dick observes, leaning in the doorway and watching her. He takes a gulp of his mug of coffee.

She ignores him and continues stretching to Brittany. There’s a bare minimum her body requires, and this is part of it. If she doesn’t stretch, things will get tight and uncomfortable quickly and she’ll end up sidelined. She flirted with it, early in her injury and midway through her doctorate when she couldn’t see her way past anything but Eric Bishop’s plans for her and perhaps more importantly his plans for himself. She’d neglected her body, sacrificing mobility and vitality at the altar of productivity. Now, she tries to be more careful about it. So, stretches in the morning and mid afternoon and before she goes to bed. 

She _should_ get out her braces and walk. She was supposed to yesterday, and then the twelve hour shift happened. She’s not sure she can make it today. She’s tired enough that she’ll be slow or clumsy. She’ll forget to fasten them correctly or fall or just be too exhausted afterward to go to work. Falling will probably leave a bruise and then it will be several days of babying it so her skin stays healthy. She knows she’s making excuses. She knows that she should just do it. She also hates the way it makes her feel. She feels free and in control and graceful in her wheelchair. Stairs suck. Inaccessible buildings suck. Cobblestones and sidewalk grates and grass and snow suck. But, it’s not like the braces make them more navigable. It’s not like walking Before. 

Dick notices. Because he’s an observant bastard. “I could spot you.” 

Not having a spotter is another favorite excuse. Not having someone in the house in case she falls is an excuse she’s used before. Dick is even a good person to have.

She shakes her head. “Not today. Maybe… I’m off at 3 tomorrow. Then?”

He nods. “Here or the Clocktower?”

She’s not sure. “I think it depends on what we hear and how things are. I want to know how last night went. And what’s up with Bruce.”

“Yeah, me too.” Dick snorts, and motions toward the leg she’s not stretching. She nods that he can come over. This isn’t something anyone does for her. It’s her body, and she takes care of it. Letting Dick in took a long time. It’s not romantic, not sexual, and somehow intimate in a way she can’t explain. And, she’s glad he asked. If he just did it and assumed, she doesn’t think she could trust him.

She sighs. “I just hate waiting my plans on the old man.”

“He hates it when you call him that. He’s not that old.” Dick doesn’t look at her, just continues expertly on her ankles.

“Forty five is ancient.” Barbara rolls her eyes. “And, anyway, it’s about attitude.”

“Ah, yes, because nothing says responsible adulthood quite like living off your family inheritance, working hard to not become a billionaire through just ethical enough capitalism, and dressing up like a bat to fight crime,” Dick agrees.

Barbara sticks out her tongue at him. He just laughs.

* * *

She pulls up the Gotham City map so she can understand her options. Once again, she regrets not being in the Clocktower. She regrets missing the pre-meeting brief. What she does looks like magic: a few aggressive keystrokes, and there’s information at her fingertips. The truth is that it takes time and effort to assemble the information, set up the scripts, curate the maps. She’s fast. Her computers are fast. But, she doesn’t have quantum processing yet and not everything can be run in parallel. NP-hard problems are still NP-hard problems, no matter how brilliant you are. So tonight, with her brain running slow after a day of work and her computer running behind because of inadequate prep, she’s fighting with an emergency.

She pulls up the big map of the Bats and tries to determine where everyone is. Robin is at home. She’s sure there was some fascinating reason in the briefing this evening, and she’s glad to have missed it. Whining is no more attractive when you’re the heir to an immortal demon army than when you’re a normal kid. Tim and Steph are off too, probably for the same reasons as all her damn student workers. Midterms week and it’s brutal, especially for Timothy “Good Enough To Mostly Half Ass It” Drake. Cass is out with Helena on a thing that Barbara has been promised will not corrupt her too much. That leaves her with Bruce and Jason.

It’s a gamble who the worst pick is tonight. Neither have a good history with the police, and pro- or counter protestors. (She’s never really quite sure which group is which.) Sometimes it’s better to just call things like she sees them. Batman, Red Hood and Nightwing do not have ...good relationships with the Gotham City PD, the social justice protesters, or the neo-nazis. 

She pulls up Nightwing’s transcript, pulls Bruce’s map over to her main screen and tries to solve the problem. Bruce is off in what is a quiet area of Gotham. She types out a message that will appear in his cowl.

`B, What’s your status?`

“That gun shipment from Oregon is supposed to be landing tonight,” Agent A reminds her.

Fuck. Right. That’s the thing she forgot. The guns from the Oregon patriots to the Gotham patriots which really shouldn’t fall into the hands of anyone who uses the term “patriot” without combining it with either “New England” and “Football” or “Dissent is the act of”. And even then, she doesn’t think they need guns en mass. No one needs guns en mass, including Red Hood. ...Not that she’s ever told Jason that. They’ve tracked the guns back to a source, it’s one of the few places they have coordinated with multiple branches of law enforcement. Someone (Batman) needs to be there to handle the transfer. Those guns need to be picked up tonight before they can be distributed at an upcoming Hitler Youth Jamboree.

“All good here, Oracle,” Batman breathes. “Cargo has been located, and I’m waiting for our rendezvous point. I’ll check in when things are complete.”

“Great,” she says. “Let me know how it goes.” 

She banishes Bruce’s screen back to the general set of maps and puts in a call to Agent A while she goes back to scanning the maps for a way to get Nightwing out.

* * *

Barbara washes her face, and goes to the kitchen. She has earned coffee. She knows she has. But, the sight she sees there almost distracts her from caffeine and makes her stop with the stock of it. Dick, still shirtless and barefoot, is attempting to scramble eggs on her stove. ...Might actually be succeeding at frying eggs on her stove.

“Holy fuck.”

“I know right,” he glances over at her just as the toaster pops.

“When did you get domesticated?”

He shrugs. “There comes a point in a man’s life where someone tells him that it’s ridiculous that he doesn’t know how to cook, and if he doesn’t learn now, he’s going to get poisoned someday.”

“Someone being Jason?” She takes a sip of her coffee. Dick has been adept at making acceptable coffee for a long time.

“Jason,” he confirms, sliding the eggs onto a plate and carrying over the toast.

“Have you, umm, talked to him this morning?” She asks.

“No, it’s like…” he glances at the clock. “It’s like the accounting hour. Jason doesn’t talk legitimate business until after two pm.”

“He might make an exception after last night,” she argues.

Dick shovels his non-poisoned eggs into his mouth and doesn’t say anything.

“Fine, I’ll call him,” she huffs. “I want his thoughts on the book-club book, anyway.”

* * *

And so her options tonight with the concert and the kid and whatever the fuck Batman has going on down at the docks (she knows, she just missed the briefing), she’s mostly just got Nightwing with his baby and Hood. And Batman who could be drawn in if absolutely necessary, but the dock thing is kind of important. 

“Oracle to Hood, you there?” She calls through Jason’s private line.

“Kinda busy here, O.” 

She pulls up his helmet camera and his position. “Fireworks?”

“Di--my therapist said it was a good idea.”

“It’s a good thing we’re on a secure channel, I think half of Gotham would be shocked to learn you have a therapist.”

“I’m pretty sure the only people in Gotham who wouldn’t support me having a therapist are the sociopaths. I’m _so_ much nicer after therapy.” 

Too true, but she doesn’t comment. “You want a better view of the fireworks?” She asks, instead.

“Uhhh...”

“What about fireworks and maybe punching nazis?” She knows one of those is the magic word. And it’s clearly not colorful explosions.

Neither Jason nor Hood get on well with Nazis. Part of it is that he just doesn’t tolerate that bullshit because “there’s so much other bullshit in the world: sexism, poverty, apple flavored skittles”. And part of the problem is the Red Hood is exactly the kind of guy NeoNazis _want_ in theory. He likes guns. He likes leather. He doesn’t take a lot of shit. He protects women and children and fights men and glorifies violence.  
Except that it turns out when you actually meet him, Red Hood is kind of anti-cop. (Although in fairness to all involved, Jason is a [hopefully] ex-drug lord in Gotham.) Red Hood is very much anti Nazi. One of Hood’s favorite hobbies (not to mention one of Jason’s) is Nazi punching. Hood even had cards made so he can hand them out to the assholes after he punches them.

> THIS WAS AN ACT OF SELF DEFENSE. YOUR (select all that apply):  
>  [ ] SPEECH  
>  [ ] SIGNAGE  
>  [ ] CLOTHING  
>  [ ] ACTIONS  
>  WERE A DIRECT INCITEMENT OF VIOLENCE AGAINST ME. I RESPONDED WITH PROPORTIONATE FORCE NECESSARY TO DEFEND MYSELF AND THOSE AROUND ME.  
>  This action was taken under N.J.S.A. § 2C:3-4  
> 

“Tell me more?”

“Nightwing got a kid.”

“No shit? Who’s the mom? Starfire? Are you okay with that? The demon brat is going to be pissed.”

“Thanks for the assumptions about that.” She’s not bitter about not being able to have kids. She’s not ready for kids. She doesn’t want kids. She’s not sure she likes kids or knows how to talk to them. And, she’s a little bit… wistful for the woman she might be if she were pregnant and having babies. It’s the lack of choice that hurts, not the one she would have made anyway. “But, no, she came over, said hello, and told him she was running away.”

That was about all she had gotten out of Dick about the kid. That, and the group of cops made her nervous.

“And you want someone else there to help sort things out.”

“Exactly. And, I wouldn’t mind someone else closer to the concert in case things turn bad.”

“So, I’d be primarily there to watch the crowds and be ready for whatever bullshit Gothm throws at us, and secondarily there as a back up babysitter for Dicky bird? Yeah, I can do that, O.”

“Thanks, Hood.” 

“Anything I should know going in?” She can hear him getting up from his position and she clicks out of his helmet camera before she gets sick.

A push notification pops up on her screen for the server job looking for the kid. Writing a push notification into a job on the JL cluster was an achievement and she’s proud of it. She pulls up the file, and looks at the name. “Well, fuck.”

“Oracle?!” Jason sounds a little bit nervous.

* * *

“Jason says he and the kid are at the Fishburn Towers Place,” Dick tells her when she comes back from brushing her teeth. 

“His most accessible shit hole? Damn, he must want us to come to him, then?” She goes back to the bedroom and starts putting together a bag. 

The boys do not have a good history of picking accessible places. She and Dick have had the “inaccessible is automatically a shithole” argument multiple times over the years. As much as it irks her for all kinds of reasons, he knows she knows he still has a few bolt holes that her wheelchair will never be able to enter. Then again, he knows that she knows that even without the wheelchair, she might not have been able to enter them. The early circus training mixed with a healthy dose of Batman’s particular brand of paranoia and years of working undercover in different ways have left him with some weird habits. And lots of boltholes. So, there’s something of a code. If the Bats end up at an accessible safe house, that means they want her to come to them. If they end up at an inaccessible one, it means they’re coming to her. It’s more convenient, requires far less driving, and sets up all sorts of boundaries without ever really having to have the conversation. She _knows_ where the rest of them are - even the ones they don’t tell her about. She’s good at GIS, okay? It’s one of her weird set of professional skills that don’t make sense with her degree or current job but make total sense in the context of her full CV. She feels like “tracking vigilantes to their hidey-holes” is not actually what her PhD was supposed to be training her to do, but she can do it now.

Dick follows her into the bedroom and pulls his suit from under her bed. He finds a spare gym bag in the closet and dumps it in, then goes and steals a towel.

“Hey!”

“I’ll bring you a new one.”

“You’ll bring that one back. It’s bamboo.”

Dick considers the towel for a moment. “I didn’t know they made bamboo towels.” He shoves it into the bag and piles another pair of pants on top. “Can we stop by the Clocktower?”

“That was the plan. Get my gray dress out of the closet. And the herringbone shoes.” She pauses. “And my braces from the other room.”

“Why?” Dick comes out of the closet with the dress and shoes. He wraps them up and sets them in the bag where she’s already thrown a few essentials that she wants at the other place: her tablet, an open sleeve of cookies, the rest of the instant miso soup, and a roll of quarters.

“Because I have a presentation on Wednesday and I don’t think I’ll be back here before then. Jason being at the towers guarantees the situation is going to be messier than we expected. So, thanks for that?”

“It wasn’t intentional,” Dick sighs. “I mean, how were we supposed to know who the kid was?”

* * *

One of the terminals on Oracle’s desktop chimes, letting her know that something has ended. Normally, she lets her jobs run silently, so this has to either be the map integration or the kid. She slides over to the full desktop space with her terminal. The file in the folder is innocuous. `NW_Gthm_0926/unknown_kid001.txt` and `NW_Gthm_0926/unknown_kid001_index.html` wait for her in the folder. She considers the text summary, but she wants to be able to follow the links. The HTML address gets forwarded carefully, and she double clicks the icon. She wants to see the pictures. And… fuck. She’s been trying to swear less. Alfred has complained that Cass’s vocabulary is half profanity and informed his second grandson and Barabara that this needs to change. But, seriously, this is worth a fuck. Hell, even Dick Grayson would have a hard time not swearing about this. She’s looking at Taylor Marie Dryer Steward. Daughter of Mary Kelly Dryer, and Adam Scott Steward. ...Yeah, that Adam Scott Stewart. Fuck. It can’t be any other, but she starts the search anyway. Or tries to. Fucking “where” queries. At least no one made her learn Java for this and they have a postgres database like sensible people. Not that she can actually imagine the Justice League using a corporate database, but sometimes… she’d made it clear early on in her tenure that there would be only one Oracle with access to the Justice League systems, and they could choose who they wanted. They chose wisely and she got better at SQL. “Hey, Nightwing, did you get any more information about Miss Taylor?” There’s quite on the line, and then Dick comes in. “So, ummm, you figured it out.” “Yeah, I did.” She tries to keep the dryness out of her voice. “Lies of omission are still lies.” “I’ll be sure to add it to my list of sins next time I make it to confession,” he promises. “I didn’t want to freak her out. I don’t know if she knows.” Barbara will admit, she hadn’t considered that. “So, then, what are we going to do?” Nightwing doesn’t answer. 

* * *

“Jason wants to know if we’ll stop for coffee,” she reports as Dick drives her car through the extended Gotham rush hour traffic.

“Jason or Hood?” Dick asks. “Cause if it’s Hood, I owe him a burrito, and if it’s Jason, I vote Micky D’s.” She didn’t know that Nightwing and Hood had a burrito thing. 

“Ummm….” she texts again. The downside to living in a small world is that sometimes the lines blur. It’s one thing for the lines to blur when they’re quiet and anonymous. Or, maybe not truly anonymous but separate. It’s okay for Nightwing and Hood to be friendly, okay for Spoiler and Tim Drake to eat waffles together, okay for Black Bat to crash at Barbara Gordon’s apartment, okay for Lian Harper to know her “Uncle Nightwing” and “Auntie O.” But, there are times when those blurred lines make things more difficult. With Taylor, there’s a price they could pay that could just be too high.

Not that they’d _do_ anything. It’s just more time in costume than is probably healthy. She doesn’t miss wearing spandex all the time. A girl needs to breathe some places. A boy too, probably.

“Hood,” she says after a minute when her phone pings. “So, burritos?”

“Burritos,” Dick confirms. “Do you want me to bring one back?”

“Bring one back? I’m coming with you.”

“No one meets Oracle,” he objects. “You’re like… like… a big secret.”

“You don’t have to tell her I’m Oracle, I’m just a friend of Nightwing’s.”

“Your voice modulator at home isn’t that good.”

“How not good?” She demands. Fuck. Should she have gone to the Clocktower?

“Not good like people know Oracle is female, not good,” he says. “Which you know, narrows you down to what?”

“Like 50% of the population?” She suggests. 

Dick makes a face.

Okay, fine. It’s an elite subset of people who have at least some of the skills to be Oracle. Barbara Gordon has at least some of the skills, if someone puts together the pieces. Of course, there are plenty of things that Oracle knows that Baraba doesn’t, at least not professionally. Barbara Gordon’s CV intersects with some of Oracle’s skillset, but not all. And, most people assume that Oracle is an organization, not a person. Of course, not everyone does. Some people can put together the pieces. She just has to hope that this kid won’t be able to.  
...Which, remembering herself when she was eleven is probably not a great gamble.

* * *

“All right, things are about to get fun and I need you to work together and if you start whining, I’m going to get Troia to lend me the Titans get-along-shirt,” she tells the channel she’s opened between Nightwing and Hood.  
They have their own channel that she’s privy to but mostly ignores. Just because you _can_ track huge amounts of data doesn’t mean you should. And, privacy is important. So, if she’s putting the two of them on the same channel with her there, it’s going to be a new conversation. 

There are grunts of acknowledgement to let her know they got the message. Jason is weaving his way through Gotham, headed over to the park and Dick is… over by the port-a-johns.

“Nightwing, status report?” 

“Apparently she had a big gulp. We’re by the toilets.”

She wants to tell him now would be a good time for him too. Because Yes, “pee before you go” is a rule. Yes, Steph has peed in basically every 7-Eleven in Gotham and half the McDonalds. Yes, the Justice League sometimes wears diapers. Yes, more than one Robin peed in an alley. (A Batgirl might have joined at least one of them.) And yes, “pee now in the port-a-john” is a good choice. But, he’s a grown ass’d adult and he can make his own decisions.

“Fuck.” Jason growls the word. The sirens start a minute later. “They’re starting the party without me.” 

She pulls up the concert feed she finally connected to. It gives her a wide shot of the field. She can pull through the patchwork of social media to get a better view, but it takes time to stitch things together. To be honest, it’s not an on-the-fly job, it’s a job that takes far more time. But, it’s enough that she can see the problem. The group in the corner that was making Dick nervous are starting to make their move. Most of the families have cleared out, leaving mostly adults, and teenagers. And group she marked as trouble have found a target.

“Fucker,” Jason repeats. “How the fuck is that Stewart fucker over there with a… fuck, does he have a gun? I thought he had a domestic violence conviction. Getting rid of him was one of the best things the GCPD did.”

Barbara can’t agree enough. Adam Scott Stewart is a walking, talking bad cop cliche. He’s currently ex-GCPD because there is some justice in the world and her father had some kind of grasp on the department before Stewart and his ilk took over. An ex cop with a wrongful termination suit over multiple violations of protocol and a right wing neo-nazi martyr.

“Loophole,” Dick says, reminding them of a law that both the Bats and the Waynes have been trying to change for a long time, despite the NRA’s best efforts. “Not married, therefore it doesn’t count. Oracle, I need a way out. Now.”

She can see him, see his bike, and see that the most direct route is through Adam Scott Stewart et al. 

“Uhhh… take eleventh up three blocks, and cut across at Cady Stanton.” 

Tim has a cache there if they need supplies, and it’s an easier place to figure things out than the middle of a park. It’s not a cache she can access, but sometimes, supplies let you get to a safe house. And, maybe they’ll pick an accessible shithole this time for a change.

“Thanks,” Dick says. “Let’s go.”

“I’m ummm… I’ve got three journalists here. In the middle of the melee,” Jason says. “I gotta get them out and then I’ll meet Wing at the cache.”

“Wouldn’t want to disappoint Wing’s godfather?”

“Someone has to keep the godparents happy,” Jason agrees.

* * *

Jason opens the door of apartment 18 in Fishburn towers for them before they have the chance to ring the doorbell. He’s wearing his usual “Hood standing down” uniform: dark gray tactical pants, a long sleeve white t-shirt, and a red domino. Jason doesn’t do bare skin. She sometimes wonders if he’d wear gloves all the time if he thought he could get away with it. But, he’s not and she can see the knuckles of his right hand are slightly bruised, like he hit something hard without wrapping them. She retrains from commenting.

“The kid’s asleep,” he tells them, nodding toward the closed bedroom door. “I put her in Robin’s room, and haven’t heard a peep since.”

“Are you sure?”

Jason extends the tablet that shows the CCTV cameras scattered around the house. A tousled blond head, an arm wrapped around a teal book, and Jason’s gotcha quilt she thinks came from Mrs. Kent is pulled up to her neck. Barbara looks at the image, and realizes she’s forgotten how young eleven is. Damian was ten when he came, but he was wary in a way she’s never seen before. Dami was never a child. Taylor clearly was, once upon a time. Maybe still gets to be.

She also realizes Jason lied about two things. First, that he comes here more often than he cares to admit (which means he’s evading his trackers) and second, that it’s “Robin’s bedroom”. All the boys and Cass have gotcha quilts from Mrs. Kent. Barbara has heard rumors that she’s making one for Steph with Alfred and Dinah’s help for Christmas. Because after Dick, the official or unofficial godparent must help. Unfortunately, Bruce doesn’t wear enough purple, and that makes it more difficult. 

“Are those for me?” Jason points to the bag in Dick’s hand.

“Burritos,” he confirms.

Jason snatches the bag away and heads toward the kitchen. “Damn, well, you better come in and put on your masks.” 

They do, Dick sliding his uniform mask out of his back pocket and offering Barbara one of the self adhering ones in dark green. She thinks it’s one of Damians, but she doesn’t care. She looks good in green, and they mostly fit her face. If they’re going to do this regularly, she should probably get some domino's custom made - she knows Dick and the Robins do it, but she’s not sure about Jason. 

“Wha’se ‘lan?” Dick asks around a mouthful of burrito.

“What?” Barbara takes a chip and dips it in guac. It’s never too early for avocado. And before you ask, yes she is a millennial, no she does not own her own home, and no she will not be taking any more questions at this time.

Dick swallows. “What’s the plan? For the kid?”

“Ms Jackson is coming by in an hour. She agreed that it was too late last night, and we should all get some sleep. So, I was an emergency placement, and we’re going to do it for real.” Jason nods toward the bedroom. “She says she wants her mom.”

“That’s not happening.” According to every database Barbara can find, Mary Kelly Dryer is currently at an inpatient addiction treatment facility outside Trenton. She broke her arm three years ago and has been struggling with an oxycontin addiction ever since. Barbara hasn’t been able to verify Taylor’s story about what went wrong three weeks ago, but if it’s true… “Any new surprises.” 

Jason waffles. “You got any pads?”

She might.

* * *

“How’s it going, Wing?” She asks.

“It, umm…” His thought is cut off by sirens. A combination of police and ambulance. 

She switches screens, something she should have had up all long but won’t fit on her TV here. She scrolls to find the call log. They’re dense. She tries searching for keywords, but grep doesn’t help when you’re trying to find “Waterfront Park” during a big concert. 

“What’s going on? Hood, Wing, talk to me.”

She pulls against social media, trying to get images to piece something together. The festival live stream video has gone blurry. It’s too dark and the commotion is too far away from the stage. 

“I’m headed over,” Jason says into the com. “Free press has been escorted to where they wanted to go.”

“Be smart, be safe, and report in,” she orders.

“When have I ever been not safe?” Hood demands, Jason bleeding in.

Nightwing snorts, and she can practically hear him opening his mouth and ready to let go a litany of Hood’s stupidity. And Jason’s. Or course, two can play at that game.

“Nigthwing, get along shirt.” Now she can practically hear him pouting.

“Hood?”

“Someone’s discovered a missing kid,” Hood reports. “Cops are coming in to try and investigate and The Group is going to fan out to search. I’m going to join them,” Hood reports in.

“Fuck. Wing?”

“Almost there. We just need to get up to the roof.” 

And then she hears a shout through Jason’s com. “Fucking vigalante’s got her!”

* * *

Barbara is drinking coffee, nibbling her chips, and trying to catch up on emails -- just because you’re an all powerful information broker doesn’t exempt you from a hundred and one departmental emails and IT reminders about phishing emails -- while Jason and Dick eat their burritos in silence. Taylor’s news isn’t good. She worries they’re going to have to call Bruce soon, and she doesn’t think any of them are looking forward to that. So, the boys eat their burritos. Vigilanting lets you keep your teenaged metabolism into your thirties. Turning into an all powerful information broker and computer hacker does not. Even when your really tired brain wants you to be able to dig into a burrito. She eats more guac. 

One of the phones in a pile on the table begins to vibrate. Jason digs through the pile of his phone’s, Red Hood’s, Nightwing’s, Dick’s and Oracle’s. Barbara has her own, because damn MDPI wanted her to review a paper for them again, and they were willing to pay her 50 RMB to do it. (They didn’t mention in the offer that 50 RMB is about $10 USD or that she wouldn’t actually be able to reject the paper, just that they wanted it done in a week.) Jason emerges with the red bullet proof case, and excuses himself from the table. He goes over and speaks into the phone quickly, the built in voice modulator altering his tone.

She and Dick exchange a glance, and Dick steals a chip off the pile. He reaches out, and brushes her mask. “It’s crooked,” he complains. “You should have let me help you.”

She shrugs. “It’s fine isn’t it?”

Dick pulls a mirror out of his pocket and offers it to her. Damn it, he’s right, the mask is crooked. Jason doesn’t have a mirror at her eye level in the apartment. Jason doesn’t really have any mirrors in the apartment except a small one over the bathroom sink and a handheld mirror she thinks he uses to help see wounds in awkward places. (The two mirror trick is convenient for so many things. There are reasons Bruce and Dick both carry mirrors, and not just because they have reputations as pretty boys.) 

“That was Ayesha,” Jason tells them, unnecessarily. Barbara has never been on a first name basis with Ms Ayesha Jackson, the social worker. The Bats have had a social worker for a while, they deal with too many cases involving kids to not have some kind of relationship with DFCS. Ms Jackson is older than Jason, bit younger than she and Dick are and quite adaptable. “She’s on her way, she’ll be here in ten minutes.” 

Barbara nods, and takes a sip of her coffee. That’s fine. She goes back to her email.

“So, umm, you gonna be Oracle? Or are you gonna take the mask off? ‘Cause I think most people have figured out you’re dating Dickhead, here, and that might be too obvious,” Jason comments. 

“Be Oracle?” She’s half following the conversation and half reading the Comp Sci Department email reminding her that there will be regularly scheduled super computer maintenance next week. She can’t remember if Babs has anything queued. She should check her computer, but that would require connecting from Jason’s IP address and he might kill her.

“Ayesha hasn’t actually met Oracle,” Jason reminds her. “Other than on the phone. She mostly deals with Bats, us assholes and Cass.”

“She talks to Steph a lot.”

“Us assholes,” Jason repeats, making a motion that takes in himself, Dick, Steph, and sketches at other people who should be present. “The Robins, dead and alive. The assholes, keep up. But, anyway, she hasn’t met you. And, there just aren’t that many redheaded women in wheelchairs in Gotham.”

Which… fair enough. Except it doesn’t take far to see where the plan is going, or how much she’s going to dislike it. “So, where do you want to put my chair?”

She is not going to let Jason take it out of her line of sight. Well, in a closet that she can see all the time, yes. Somewhere else? No. Long term security is worth short term discomfort, and she trusts Dick in all kinds of ways. It doesn’t mean she likes it. She studies Jason’s options for “comfortable” seating (quotations needed). There’s a flat pack loveseat and the kind of second hand armchair that will eat you whole. She used to love girl-eating armchairs. Now, death by upholstery seems like a bad idea. 

Jason disappears into one of the bedrooms and she lines up the transfer. She’s tried, and she does this a hundred times a day.

“Whatcha doing?” 

She almost falls on her ass.

* * *

She can tell from Nightwing’s tracker that he’s by Red Robin’s cache. Normally his altimeter would change, but she knows that he’s still on the ground. And, if the gentle pattering outside her window is anything to go by, the sky has opened. She wishes she could see them, but Tim is particularly good at spotting and hiding from the cameras that she piggybacks on. It’s a skill, and it pisses her off. So, she’s stuck waiting, listening, and imagining.

“Ready to go up?” Dick asks. He flicks something so his mike picks up more sounds and she can hear Taylor’s voice, but it’s still slightly garbled.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Why not? It will be drier up there, and then we can make a plan and get you somewhere safe.”

“Cause you’re a cop.” Taylor’s voice sounds flat and uncertain.

“How do you know that?” Dick’s tone is light, calm, and even. There is nothing wrong here.

“You move like a cop,” Taylor mutters. “Not before, but when we left? You know how cops loom? You cop loomed.”

“I… I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I was a cop,” Dick says carefully. “But I’m not anymore.”

“Were you kicked off?”

“Umm, no, I chose to leave.” His voice is still calm.

“‘Cause now you don’t have to follow any rules?” Taylor’s voice is rising, both in volume and pitch. 

Dick takes a deep breath, and then another one. They’ve all done de-escalation training. They do it every year. There’s Justice League training, but there’s also Gotham special de-escalation therapy. And Wayne family de-escalation talk therapy. It kind of got to be a thing after Jason came back and there was the showdown with the Batarang. 

“I have lots of rules I have to follow,” he says. “I’ve got the laws. What they say and what they mean. I can’t just go around breaking the laws, that would make a rogue and I’m not allowed to be a rogue.”

“Wouldn’t want to be _that_ son,” Jason mutters. “We can only have two fucks in the family, and those Robins already died.” 

Dick is probably smart enough to have Jason muted. Either way, he ignores him. “And, I gotta follow Batman’s rules. Because Batman has a whole bunch of rules. And so, if I don’t follow those, there he’ll kick me out of Gotham, or maybe worse. And, I’ve got my own code. I’ve got rules for myself, because at the end of the day, I have to be able to look myself in the eyes in the mirror.” 

“I know lots of cops who can do that just fine without any rules.” Taylor is probably jutting out her chin. Babs hasn’t seen her, but she’s pretty sure Taylor is a chin jutter.

Barbara hears the sound of sirens. She silences Red Hood, but the whine is still there. She swipes over to the police scanner, and there’s nothing in her area, but… fuck. They’re about to do a sweep in the area near Nightwing. He and Taylor need to get out of sight.

“Can, I, umm, can I say something?” She interrupts because they may not have heard it, or may not know things are changing, but she knows and she needs to do something.

“Who’s that?” Taylor jumps.

“I’m umm, Oracle. We talked earlier.”

“Oracle doesn’t exist. Oracle is some fucking computer somewhere that’s half Bat porn.”

Ummm… that’s a new one. She’s been called a lot of things over the years. “Creepy Fucking computer” might be her favorite. And yes, there is porn on the Justice League servers. Yes, she knows this for a fact because she’s one of the sys admins. Yes, there are rules about what is okay to keep (and a fairly large push for ethical porn), rules about storage, and rules about downloading. But yes, it’s there. But, she is not a computer. Or Bat porn, whatever that means. Is it like panda porn? Like the porn they made for the pandas. She… she isn’t sure she wants to know.

“Nope, not a computer, kinda real.” 

“That’s what a computer would say!”

“Look, is there someone you do want to talk to? Who would help you feel safer with Nightwing?” Barbara realizes should have asked this earlier. But, earlier, the girl hadn’t seemed so feisty. 

There’s a pause. “Batgirl,” she decides. 

“I can get you a Batgirl,” Barbara promises.

“Get _my_ Batgirl,” Nightwing orders. “The one from when I was Robin. Are you going to call her?”

“You weren’t Robin. You were a cop.” Taylor complains.

“Ummm. Yes. I was both. I was Robin and Oracle is going to call _my_ Batgirl. There are like… Hey, O, do we count Red twice?” She’s pretty sure he’s attempting to count Robins and Batmans on his fingers. 

She ignores that. “I’m going to get her on the line,” she says, instead, pulling off her headset and rooting around in the drawer for the phone she uses for Bat-related purposes. 

“Tell her there are extra masks in my dresser. At her house, not at work.” Damn Dick is smooth. Sort of.

“You live with Batgirl?” ...And Taylor picked up on it.

“Sometimes?” Nightwing admits. “And I kind of want to all the time, but… it’s complicated.”

“Because you’re a cop?” Taylor asks again.

Dick sighs. “No, because I’m not Robin anymore and she’s not Batgirl anymore and growing up makes things complicated.”

Amen to that.  
Barbara manages to land, and Dick pulls the pieces of the wheelchair into the closet, almost throwing the door shut on them.

“Whatcha doing?” Taylor repeats. She points to Barabara, “Nightwing, who is she?”

“The cat’s mother?” Barbara offers up to the universe.

“No, she is the Cass’ mother,” Dick mutters, shutting the door on the closet and coming over to rest a hand on her shoulder and drop a water bottle in Barbara’s lap. A not so subtle reminder that her exhausted body will regret if the only thing she drinks is coffee. Of course he also managed to forget that the coffee was extra, so. 

Dick turns to the girl. “Are you okay this morning, Taylor?”

Taylor gives a little half shrug. Which… fair enough. Barbara isn’t sure she’s okay this morning and she got to spend the night in her bed.

“Do you want breakfast?” Dick prompts again.

Taylor looks at her, glancing carefully, and then at Dick, and back at her.

“We already ate,” Barbara says quickly. “But Di--Nightwing will fix you something, if you’re hungry.”

“Will you?” Taylor asks her, quietly. Shit, she’s really scared of cops.

“Umm… I’m in the middle of something. Nightwing can help you, or Hood, when he gets off the phone.” 

“Hood can help with what?” Jason reappears. The pocket of his sweats dip low with the weight of the two phones, and a skinny , scarred hip bone pokes out. “Ms Jackson is going to come by in about twenty minutes,” he adds helpfully. The fact that Ms Ayesha Jackson has given Jason first name privileges does not always extend to the kids and it’s better to air on the side of caution. Especially with everything they know and suspect about Adam Scott Stewart. With kids, you model the respect you expect and refuse to expect anything less.

“Do you want me to call Dr Thompson?” Dick asks. “And ummm… the Comish?” 

“Didn’t you call them last night?” Barbara asks, trying to remember. “Did I call them last night?” She’s also trying to figure out why she has an email in her inbox from Mr. DNA. She doesn’t do DNA stuff. Who sold her email address to that mailing list? “Is she in the clinic today?” 

Dick fishes for his Nightwing phone. “I’ll text them.” He disappears down the hall toward what is probably a bathroom and a second bedroom. 

Jason turns back to Taylor. “You hungry, kid?”

Taylor waves her hand again, like she’s too afraid to ask for something.

“Nightwing was going to help her fix breakfast, but you’re here, so you can help her. I’m umm... “ She waves her Barbara Gordon phone. “Day jobbing?”

“I need to do that.” Jason makes a face. He turns to Taylor. “Okay, kid, what do you want to eat?”

“Do you have French Toast?” She sounds a little braver than she did with Dick.

“Ummm…” Jason heads toward the kitchen, let’s look. “I’ve got… a burrito, black bean soup, tea, chips that Ba-- Or-- Nightwing brought, and oatmeal.” The fridge opens. “And then… oat milk coffee creamer.” She hears him pull open a cupboard. “Or, umm… Nightwing, you know I don’t let this shit in my house.” Barbara can only imagine what he’s found in the cupboards.

Dick comes back in to inspect the “shit” Jason has found. Taylor hurries out of the kitchen and sits next to Barbara.

“Hey, Hood, I know it’s not a balanced breakfast, but what if we started with the chips?” Barbara suggests. 

Jason comes out of the kitchen carrying the bag of chips and balancing a container of salsa on top of a pint of ice cream. He deposits the chips and salsa on the coffee table in front of Taylor. He also drops a roll of paper towels in front of her. “Normally, I’d ask you to eat at the table, but I’m going to make an exception. Please don’t spill.” 

He continues with the ice cream over to Dick. “Why is this here?”

“Because it’s good. And you only have the non-dairy stuff.” Dick seems entirely unfazed. 

Barbara tries to ignore the boy’s bickering. She’s currently skimming through a student CV for someone who wants her to spend $10,000 so they can do something vaguely related to what she does. (It’s not that she objects to teaching. She just doesn’t like getting emails addressed to Mrs Gordon where they claim their qualifications are an online MOOC from Harvard. She probably _is_ a snob, but damn it, she’s also a doctor with limited bandwidth and very tired and just like they were always careful to call Ms Ayesha “Ms Jackson” until she gave them permission, she wishes more people were cognizant of the effect of calling the only visibly disabled woman in the room by her first name or “Mrs.” while everyone else is “Doctor”.)

Jason is somewhat frustrated, or at least pretends to be. “At least _I_ know that I can’t eat dairy. Have you been on a stake out with Ti- Rep-- Red Robin recently? Poor guy doesn’t even know he’s lactose intolerant.” Jason continues rattling the cupboard. Barbara wonders if lactose intolerance is a side effect of death. “I know I can’t eat it, but here you are tempting me! Nightwing, you know better! My house, my rules!”

Suddenly, the seat next to Barbara on the couch is vacant and the door to the bedroom slams shut.

The doorbell rings.

* * *

A round face surrounded by a blond halo appears on the screen. “How do I know you’re really Batgirl?” 

Barbara yawns. “Because I like waffles and Red Robin fell off the roof last week playing tag.”

“But Batgirl is blond.”

“Now Batgirl is blond. Before that she had black hair. And, before that, she was me.” God, is that even grammatically correct? She checks her mug of soup. It’s cold and she’s suddenly tired and hungry. 

Taylor searches for someone to confirm, but there’s no one else there. She’s come this far, she’ll have to take whatever comes next on faith. Barbara is half worried that Taylor is going to hang up the phone, kick Nightwing in the shins again, and run away to take her chances somewhere else.

“What happens next?” Taylor asks, as the sirens draw closer.

“If you let him, Nightwing is going to take you someplace safe for a little bit. And then, you can talk. And, after that, you might leave. And, we might call Ms. Jackson from DCFS. If you’re getting abused physically or sexually, Nightwing, Hood, and I all have to tell someone because you need to be safe.” 

She’s pretty sure the laws are vague on whether or not vigilantes function as mandated reporters, but she and Dick act like they are. Bruce and Jason use the principle but don’t always report. Sometimes, they just act because the law is failing and has failed and if you can’t use your vigilante powers to help kids in trouble, then why the hell are you a vigilante at all?

She can see the lights on her map, she can see Dick’s tracker. “But, if you want to stay and tell us why you came to find Nightwing, you need to trust him now!”

The call drops, but she watches through Nighwing’s mask cam, behind his floppy bangs. They scramble up to the fire escape - something that he would have done gracefully and quickly on his own but is harder with a child in tow. Nightwing catches on something, and she can hear the inhale of breath. And then, there’s the rough black of the roof. 

Nightwing’s breaths are ragged. At home, Barbara’s breaths are ragged too, her body responding to a climb she hasn’t made in a decade. She closes her eyes, and she’s on that roof briefly for a moment. She tries to not grieve who she was, any more than anyone does. She tries not to grieve who she might have been. There are nights like this where she wants nothing more than to be out.

When she comes back, Nightwing and Taylor are there and the cops are clear. She calls them back.

“Did you get in?”

“Not so much in, but on,” Nightwing explains. “Here.” He shoves the phone at Taylor and goes to rummage for something in the cache.

“You okay?” Barbara asks, focusing on the girl.

She nods, shakes her head, nods again. 

“Do you have any questions for me?”

“What happens next?” Taylor asks again. “Do we have to do that anymore?”

“Flying with Nightwing?” Barbara asks, trying to keep the jealousy out of her voice.

“Climbing fire escapes.” Taylor makes a face.

“Ahh, no. Oracle said that Red Hood would call her to let her know when he’s free which should be… she’ll text me.” She tries to get up Jason’s feed, but it’s blurry and there’s nothing intelligible coming through. “Right now, do you want to tell me more about why you came to find Nightwing?”

Taylor stares out into the night. “Cause my dad said he got bad cops,” she says quietly. “And, my dad is a bad cop. He… he’s gonna kill someone.”

Barbara nods, and waits. She’s not good at active listening, but she’s trying. Dick would be better. Dick is better. But, Dick makes Taylor nervous.

“He said he’s going to kill someone, and he’s got a gun and he’s looking…” She flushes. “And I’m scared… And I don’t want him to know I know.”

Barbara waits. She waits and she feels it in her body, listening, wondering if there’s more.

“He… I think he wants to kill me,” Taylor says finally. “Cause… cause… I think he wants to kill me.”

“I bet you don’t feel safe going back, then?” Barbara prompts. “You were brave to get away.”

Taylor doesn’t respond.

“Is it okay if I call Ms. Jackson? She helps us when there are kids involved.” 

Taylor nods. 

“And then, I’m going to tell Red Hood to come meet us.”

“Tell him… tell him that my-- that Adam-- tell Hood that he wants to kill him. And Nightwing. And Dick Grayson.”

“I will,” she promises. They can both hear the sirens coming closer.

Dick comes over. “Is it okay to let Batgirl go?” He asks. “Cause the cops…” 

“Yeah.” Taylor sounds resigned and weary. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

Once she’s off the phone, Barbara turns back to her Oracle headset. “You get that boys? Adam Scott Stewart wants to kill Red Hood and Nightwing.”

“My evening just got slightly more interesting,” Hood admits. “Looks like I got someone on my dance card.”

* * *

Commissioner Gordon, Ms Jackson, and Dr Thompson arrive within a few minutes of each other. Red Hood gets domestic, and offers around coffee, tea, or water to his guests. Ms Jackson gets herself a glass of tap water. Commissioner Gordon shoots Hood a look that asks, _Do you think I’m stupid?_ She recognizes it from when she was a teenager and tried to pull a fast one on her dad. Except she’s 90% sure that Jason is just trying to be hospitable. And possibly delaying the inevitable. 

Having been offered refreshments, they settle into the small living room. Barbara stays on the futon, her wheelchair held hostage in the small closet by the door by her civilian identity. Dr Thompson has been offered the only other comfortable padded seat in the living room area, a wingback in a style similar to what Wayne manor has in their library. The ones in the library are leather, and this was clearly bought from Goodwill, but she knows the style. Ms Jackson, Commissioner Gordon, and Nightwing all sit in chairs with varying degrees of success. Dick is terrible at sitting in a chair normally. Red Hood leans against the wall in a corner, one bare ankle crossed in front of the other. And Taylor, the object of attention and reason for the proceedings, sits next to Barbara. She has apparently decided that Barbara is the only safe person in the room. Even so, Taylor is settled back into the loveseat as far as she can go, burrowed as far into the cushions as the modern design will allow, with a book on her lap, secured in place by a pillow clutched to her chest like a shield. 

They introduce themselves quickly, Jason, and Barabara vouching for the other three adults. She’s there to make sure that Taylor stares at Ms Jackson and her lips form a sentence she thankfully keeps to herself. She looks confused by Dr. Thompson. She burrows into the couch when they introduce the commissioner. He gives Barabara a strange look, but doesn’t say anything. They’ve spent the last 15 years playing Ostrich, they can keep doing it for this child. 

And then, once they’re introduced themselves, Taylor starts talking. She stares straight ahead at a point on the wall. Rarely, very rarely, she glances at Barbara. But, mostly, she keeps her eyes fixed on the distance as she recounts things that no one should ever have to talk about. 

If one iota of what Taylor is saying is true, then Barbara wants to wrap her up and take her away somewhere safe where no one will ever hurt her again. If one iota of what Taylor says is true, she’s going to need a long time to heal. If it’s true at all… 

The little girl’s words slow to a trickle and then stop. She’s not crying. She’s just… done. Exhausted. Clutching her pillow shield and staring ahead and refusing to say anymore. 

They sit in silence. Barbara doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t think she could have done what Taylor did. She doesn’t think she could have found the words to tell that story. She can’t look at the child. Instead, Barbara studies the circle of adults. Hood hasn’t moved from his position by the door, but the bruises on his knuckles show as he flexes his hand until the tendons stand out stark against the green and purple and scars. Dr Thompson’s face is neutral, although her lips are pressed into a firm line. Barbara knows that Dr Thompson’s next step will be to ask if she can conduct a physical exam - they need to see if the bruises Taylor is talking about are real. They should have done it last night, but there were other things last night. Ms Jackson is shaking her head, her coil of braids moving slightly. She’s been spending the whole session doing active listening, leaning forward and meeting Taylor’s eyes when she would let her, so that Taylor knows she’s not alone. Barbara knows that Taylor isn’t going back. She probably isn’t staying here, but she’s not going back. Not now, not ever. Commissioner Gordon’s face is grim, his eyes sad. He leans across the coffee table to pick up the small tape recorder that’s been playing, and Taylor draws further back into the couch. She’s still not comfortable with Nightwing, would be afraid of Dick Grayson, but she’s positively terrified of former police commissioner Jim Gordon, Gotham’s head cop. 

“What happens next?” Dick breaks the silence in the room, the quiet question echoing.

Dr Thompson and Ms Jackson exchange looks. “I’d like to examine you, Taylor,” Dr Thompson says. “I’d like Ms Jackson to come, too. She’ll write down anywhere you’re hurt, so we know.” 

Taylor nods, slowly.

“And then, I’m going to call and see if we can find a foster family for you,” Ms Jackson explains. “Someone who can keep you safe.”

“Can’t I stay here?” The little girl asks, drawing further into the couch.

It’s brave. Barabara has to give her points for her bravery. That even after Jason’s outburst and the time it took to calm her down, Taylor wants the devil she knows over the one he doesn’t.

“I’m only an emergency placement kid,” Jason says, crossing the room to squat next to Dick’s chair.

“You?” Jim Gordon is suprised. “I thought for sure Nightwing…”

“Well, not me, Red Hood. But my civilian identity?”

“So if I check the records...?”

“No, Ms Ayesha fixed it up nice and pretty. I’m registered and licensed for emergency placements when we can’t avoid ‘em and Big Bat is busy, and you still can’t find my legal name.” Jason taunts.

Barbara does not drop her face into her hands. She wants to, but she manages not to. She does exchange a look with Nightwing that the others notice. Nor does she comment on the fact that one of the reasons Jim Gordon won’t find Jason’s name is because Jason Peter Todd is legally dead, and that kind of screws with the whole foster parent thing…

Dick senses the conversation going off topic. “Ms Jackson is going to find you someone nice to stay with while things get sorted out. And Commissioner Gordon is going to make sure your d-- Stewart gets brought up on charges.”

“What if they’re not nice in foster care?” Taylor asks the question. “What if they’re not nice like you? What if no one else ever wants me?”

Dick, Barbara, and Jason exchange a long look. “It’s… its not easy, kid.” Jason says, finally. “But, ummm, sometimes it works out. I mean, my foster dad was pretty great. And my grandpa? World’s best, no joke.” There’s a bitter sweet note in his voice, and Barabara’s pretty sure if the mask wasn’t there, Jason’s eyes would be misty.

“I was adopted,” Dick says quietly. “My parents died, and I was adopted.”

“When you were a baby?” Taylor asks. “Cause no one wants big kids. I know no one wants teenagers, they’re all trouble.”

“I was eleven. Well, eleven when he fostered me and thirteen when he adopted me.” 

Barbara nods. She doesn’t want to talk about her dad, not with him in the room. Because Taylor doesn’t need to know and Ms Jackson doesn’t need to know and if she does, her dad is going to have to confront who she is.

“And, even after that, we’re still gonna be there,” Barbara promises. “Nightwing, Hood, and I don’t just turn kids over and forget about them. If it’s okay with the kids, Ms Jackson gives us updates, sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Ms Jackson agrees. “If it’s okay with you, Taylor honey, I’ll make sure Nightwing and Hood and umm…”

“Batgirl,” Taylor supplies helpfully. 

“Batgirl?” Ms Jackson continues somewhat quizzically, because she has met Steph, “know about you.”

Taylor looks around at all of them, and eases the pillow off her lap. “Okay,” she agrees. “Okay, you can examine me, but I want Batgirl to come too.”

* * *

“Did that count as a credible threat?” Jason asks on a private double encrypted channel. “Like, she said he wants to kill me, and Dick and Nightwing.” 

“Not that kind of doctor,” she responds. “Although if you want to do Poli Sci or something for undergrad, let me know and I’ll help you get into GU. I bet Bruce would love a lawyer in the family.”

“I’ve heard stories about pre law, no thanks.” Jason pauses. “I’m not going to go do it.”

“Be fast, I’ve got Dick and a kid who’s freaking out on a roof in the rain, waiting for your ass.”

“Fine,” Jason agrees. “Call Ms Jackson?”

“On it,” she promises. 

She tries Ms Jackson’s work number again. She sets it to call every five minutes. Then, she cracks into the databases she’s got assembled. Fucking where queries. Fucking Lex Corp changing their fucking encryption and charging way too much for cell service. Fucking… 

Jackpot.

She makes the computer dial the number and waits.

The number picks up on the seventh ring. “‘ello?”

“Hi, umm, this is Oracle. I’m really sorry.” 

“Oracle? Like Delphi?”

“No, umm, Oracle like Batman.”

“Batman,” Ms Jackson agrees. And yawns loudly. “Right. Okay. Oracle like Batman.” She sounds slightly more awake. “What can I do for youse tonight?”

“Nightwing found a kid. Or, umm, a kid found Nightwing. And, she can’t go back tonight. Do you have your work computer?”

Ms Jackson yawns again. “It’s Sunday and I’m at my Aunt’s in Philly. My work computer doesn’t leave the state.” 

Damn, that makes it harder.

“Will you be back tomorrow?”

“I can be,” Ms Jackson agrees. “My mom’s gonna be disappointed, but she knows work comes first.”

“I’m really sorry,” Oracle offers.

She can almost hear the shrug. “Yeah, well, it’s my job. What will you need?” 

“Emergency placement tonight for one kid.”

“Do you want to keep her tonight?”

No. Yes. Kinda of? “Umm, I think so. If she’s telling the truth, it’s better off the books.”

“Umm… Wing?”

“She doesn’t like cops.”

“Shit, Wing’s a cop?”

“He was,” Oracle offers. “Do I need to call Bats?”

“Todd could do it,” Ms Jackson says, slowly. “If that works for you.”

“Umm… yeah. If she doesn’t have a problem with Todd, let’s go with him.”

“Good,” Ms Jackson agrees. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get up early tomorrow.”

“Yep, sorry, good night.” She feels like she should apologize further, but Ms Jackson cuts her off.

“Good night, Oracle.” 

The call ends with a click.

Barbara sits back, takes off her glasses, and rubs the bridge of her nose. She checks the time, and realizes in the everything… she transfers back to her chair and heads to the bathroom. She stretches, rolling her shoulders and working on the kinks in the places she can feel them. She misses her chair at the Clocktower. And her setup at the Clocktower. But, her bed is better here, if she ever gets to see it.

Instead, she pulls her headset on just in time to hear Hood yell, “Yippee-ki-yay motherfucker.”

* * *

The others start moving, and she realizes what a precarious position she’s in. She’s supposed to go to work across town in less than 30 minutes. She’s supposed to go join Dr. Thompson, Ms Jackson, and Taylor in the bedroom for a physical exam after the little girl gets cleaned up again. (There’s a rust colored spot on Jason’s couch that none of them have talked about yet, because the thing that today needs is an after school special first period story. She’s supposed to go take care of her own body. She has a schedule, damn it. She has complex feelings about having that schedule, but complex feelings or not, she has one and she needs to deal with it. And all of that hinges on a thinly concealed identity and the wheelchair sitting inside the front hall closet, waiting for her.

She still hasn’t moved from the couch, and she knows it’s getting suspicious. She feels utterly vulnerable - trapped and uncertain. She hates the set of circumstances that put her here. Still, she has a job to do. “We’ll need a copy of the tape, Commissioner.” 

Because of course he’s an old school cop who uses actual itty-bitty cassette tapes instead of a digital voice recorder. They’ve had the conversation before, and Jim Gordon thinks the mp3 and mp4 files are too easy to alter. She thinks of the chain of metadata written into them that aren’t there with the tapes and leaves that, Gotham City police funding, cruises, and the state of Minnesota as “agree to disagree”s because at some point, her relationship with her father isn’t worth the fall out. She knows she has privilege there. She knows she’s making excuses and wrapping herself in that privilege, but quite frankly, she doesn’t care.

He pulls the tape out of the recorder and places it carefully on the coffee table. She pulls out one of the computers. Nightwing goes and finds a backpack in the kitchen (hers or his, she’s not sure) and pulls out one of the non descript Wayne Tech laptops that the field team uses. (“Us assholes” her mind supplies in Jason’s voice) along with the mini digitalization recorder.

Jason looks over. “You look like you could use a cigarette, commissioner?”

“I’m trying to quit,” her dad says roughly. She can see his fingers twitching.

“Me too,” Jason offers, a little bit embarrassed. “Been trying for years.”

“You don’t look old enough to have started smoking.”

“Ahh, well, misspent youth.”

“No doubt,” the commissioner eyes the vigilante carefully. “I’ve still got half a dozen warrants out for you.”

“Truce today, for the kid?”

“For the kid,” her dad agrees.

Hood considers and fishes in the kitchen drawer for a pack of gum. “How about some nicorette and fresh air, while the files transfer.”

“That sounds… okay,” her father agrees, his fingers still twitching, following Hood out of the apartment.

Dick comes over and flops on the floor next to the couch, bonelessly. “How do you want to do this?”

“Do this what? I’m going to have to call in, aren’t I?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind of injury do you want this time?”

Dick considers. “Ooh, can I sprain my wrist really badly this time? Bad enough that you need to take me to the ER for x rays, but not so bad that I won’t be able to use it at the Holiday party?”

“Why does the holiday party matter?”

“I can’t double fist mulled wine and cookies in a sling.”

“You’ll just hide the cookies _in_ your sling, I’ve seen you.”

“The crumbs itch,” Dick complains pragmatically.

She looks at him. “That didn’t stop you when you were twelve.”

“Do I look twelve to you?”

“It didn’t stop you when you were twenty-two,” she counters, leaning close.

“Look, do you want me to get your chair or do you want a lift to the bathroom?” Because of course the bastard knows her schedule as well as she does. Which is somehow deeply irritating. The irritation might be exacerbated by a lack of sleep, but it’s still there.

“Work,” she decides. “Then bathroom, then Robin’s room.” 

She pulls out her phone and dials the number. It’s a quick conversation that somehow ends with a promise to call if they get done early and Patty wheedling an extra shift out of her next Sunday. She can keep doing this, she can. She can do anything for two weeks. She’s good at going without sleep, she’s done it before.

“Piggy back?”

She avoids Dick’s worried eyes, the ones that might come with pity if she looks hard enough.

She nods. “Yeah, let’s get this over with.”

He scoops her up and boosts her across his back, hands gentle and careful.”

“You can touch my ass, Boy Blunder.”

* * *

Her headset chimes with a priority override. “Oracle, come in!” She knows that gravel anywhere. 

“What’s going on with the missing kid at Waterfront Park?” Bruce demands. Because either Alfred tipped him off, or else because he has a police scanner in his cowl. Probably both. 

“Nightwing and Hood are on it,” she tells him lightly. “How’s the drop off going?”

“It went fine, I’m here if they need back up.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind, Old man,” she tells him. “Have you done the rest of the route?”

Bruce groans. He respects her, but he doesn’t like to be told what to do. He sighs. “Just remind Nightwing that Nazi punching works better when he tucks his thumb.”

“It’s Hood.”

“Oh, well, I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Bruce says. “Call if you need me.”

“Will do,” she promises, going back to the maps. 

The twitter hits have changed as the concert goers have given way to protesters, counter protesters, and a collection of tweets about Red Hood. ...Unfortunately, one of her bots crawling conservative websites has also picked up a recent tirade by some bleached blond right wing bitch announcing Nightwing and Hood have gone rogue and kidnapped an innocent kid. The commentator suggests that shooting on sight might not be a bad idea. Except that given the sheer number of guns in that crowd, it’s probably a bad idea.

She pulls up Hood’s helmet cam. “How’s it going, Hood?” 

“Almost to my bike,” he tells her, out of breath. A gloved hand shoots out as he punches someone in the face. “Almost to my bike, and then…”

“I’ll give you directions, she promises.”

She flips channels. “Everything okay, Wing?”

“We’re ummm, hanging in here,” he keeps his voice low. “They’re starting to fan out.”

“Hood’s coming,” she promises. “He’ll be there soon.”

She hopes she’s right.

* * *

Nightwing deposits her on the only chair in Jason’s room, a small folding chair in a corner. She assumes he uses it to put on his boots and finish gearing up, there are small clumps of dirt underneath. She takes a minute to settle herself, surreptitiously trying to straighten her legs and find something that should be a comfortable position in the hard seat. If she’s not careful, her body is going to make her pay for the past two days in all kinds of uncomfortable ways.

She takes a long minute to look around the room. Clearly Jason’s room. It's’ not just the gotcha quilt on the twin bed or the dirt under the chair or the pair of gray sweats sticking out of the laundry hamper in the corner. The bookshelf is full, lined with things she knows Jason likes because he’s loaded up her kindle. Things she likes, too, because sometimes he asks her recs. And then, there’s that line of books in the corner that she can’t quite make sense of and needs to. Oh, she understands them, and why a kid born in the late 90s would have Percy Jackson, Eugenedes, Kaz Brekker, TJ Jones, Charles Wallace Murry, and Peter Pan, with Blue and her broken Raven Boys. There’s a thin marble composition book at the end. She knows intellectually why they’re there, and it hurts part of her to see it.

...This is Jason’s room, and she feels like an intruder.

“Are you ready, Taylor?” Ms Jackson asks.

Nightwing takes it as a cue to leave, holding up the paper Dr. Thompson passed to him. “Lunch requests?” He holds up a finger. “Aside from no mayo,” he points at Barbara, “gluten free,” he nods at Ms Jackson, “and vegetarian,” he smiles at Dr Thompson.

They all look at Taylor. “Whatever you get,” she murmurs, staring at her hands. “It’s fine.”

Dick backs out of the room with a nod.

Taylor looks at the three of them and swallows. She looks like she’s about to face the Gallows. She perches on the little twin bed like it’s an exam table at the doctor’s office and clutches her hands in her lap and Barbra can tell that she’s trying to look as grown up as she can, this child with a soft baby face and a little girl’s body and old eyes.

“Okay,” Dr Thompson says, her voice gentle the way it has been for a hundred exams. “Okay, I’m going to tell you everything that’s going to happen. And, you can tell me to stop almost any time, okay?”

“Okay?”

“I might not be able to stop safely, and if I can’t, I’ll tell you, and we’ll try to make it more comfortable, okay?” Dr Thompson continues. Barbara knows the speech isn’t for her, but it makes her feel better. So many times, other people decide that they know what’s best for her body and don’t have to tell her. And then they end up in a position where she cries for them to stop, and they can’t, and no one will tell her why. So, yeah, she respects this. She has to.

“Okay,” Taylor says again.

“Do you want to start with questions or the exam first, honey?” 

Taylor looks scared.

“Do the questions first,” Barbara advises.

Taylor nods. “Okay.”

Dr Thompson flips open her laptop and Ms Jackson opens up a recording app on her phone. At least she believes in digital recordings, unlike some Philistines.

* * *

She watches nervously as Jason’s tracker moves away from Waterfront Park, toward the neighborhood where Tim’s cache is. It’s a short trip, and kind of nauseating to watch from the helmet cam, but not as bad as when she’s tried to fly with Dick. Watching someone summersalt on a grappling hook while half your view is obscured by bangs? Not ideal.

“Hood, what’s your ETA?”

“Three minutes, if I don’t get stopped.” He sounds nervous.

She scans the map. “You look okay, cop wise. Wing, can you make it?” 

“We can try,” he says. “Ready, Taylor?”

“No.” The voice is small. It would be small, even if it wasn’t second hand through Nightwing’s microphone.

“Can you try?” He asks, nervously.

Barbara studies the map and their exit routes. “You need to move soon, Wing. They’re starting to get out the helicopters. If that happens, Hood won’t be able to hold his position that long.”

“What’s this building, O?” Wing asks.

“The building, umm… offices. Insurance, insurance, accounting, chiropractor, window washers, and umm… mustard.” 

“So it’s empty?”

“At two-thirty on a Monday morning? Yeah, it’s empty.” 

“Alarms?” 

She catches up, and looks for what she needs. She’s got info for the big three alarm companies in her books. She checks the building logs, and tries to decide what’s best. “It’s one of the Caldecott set, but the search is still running.”

“You’ve got maybe five minutes,” Jason tells them. “The cops are going to circle again.”

“I… I can cut power to the block,” she offers.

“Good,” Nightwing decides. “Hood, pick the lock on the front and I’ll do the roof and we’ll go that way.” 

“You hear that Hood?”

“You know I’m always up for a little old fashion B’n’E,” Hood says. 

She logs into a site that she shouldn’t have access to, and enters a few careful commands. It’s somehow weirdly less tense and easier to convince the electric grid to turn off lights to a 3 block radius around the building than it is to untar a gzipped file. Fewer weird letters to remember. 

“Down she asks?”

“Down,” Hood confirms. 

“You’ve got three minutes before anyone realizes anything is wrong.”

“Roger that,” Hood says. 

“Ready?” Nightwing asks.

She assumes Taylor nods, because the lock picking starts. Lock picking was a skill that Dick learned from Bruce, but it’s a skill Jason taught himself. Jason likes puzzles and games and tricks because he likes the intellectual exercise. It’s different from Tim who likes puzzles so he can take them apart and put them back together and know their workings so there’s never any mystery. Jason doesn’t mind mystery, he just likes challenges.

“Ready for you, Wing.” Hood says quietly into the com. 

Thirty seconds later, she hears the pounding of feet on the stairs through Jason’s com. The sound is too loud. 

“Wait,” Hood calls, his voice low. “Turn off your lights, we’ve got a patrol through here.”

In her mind’s eye, she can see the way the eerie blue and red lights trace over the empty stairwell, and how they might light up a little girl even if they let Dick hide. 

“Coast is clear, let’s go!” Hood tells them. “Now!”

They pelt the last few steps to Hood. “Got them,” he tells her, just to reassure her.

“Good,” she lets out the breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“We’ve got permission for an emergency placement.” 

“Fishburn Towers?” He asks.

“Dealer’s choice.” 

“Let’s get you off the streets, kid.” Jason holds out his hand, and she can see Taylor take it gingerly.

* * *

Sitting through Taylor’s exam is one of the hardest things Barbara has done in a long time. Physically, the little girl has gotten off lightly. At least what’s visible. And none of the things Barbara is deeply afraid of, the ones that would make her want to kill Adam Scott Stewart more than she does. But, there’s plenty there, anyway. 

There are a few bruises that Ms Jackson took pictures of, and ribs that Dr Thompson wants to x-ray. Actually, Dr. Thompson would like to take a full body x-ray, because if she’s right, there’s lots there to see. But that’s a problem for tomorrow.

Taylor refuses a pelvic exam. Dr Thompson and Ms Jackson press, but Barbara defends her. It’s her body and it’s her choice and regardless of what might have happened in the past, today is a new day and some things, she can choose. The doctor and the social worker look upset, but Barbara doesn’t care. Being a vigilante means protecting people in unconventional ways. Apparently advocacy for bodily autonomy is one of them.

It’s hard to hear the other things that come out. Taylor’s schooling has been intermittent. Her parents pulled her out for home based curriculum when she was eight, sent her back when her mom got pregnant when she was nine, and then kept her out the past couple of years, until her mom ended up in court ordered rehab, and her dad couldn’t justify keeping her home alone. She can read and write. She knows how to multiple both whole numbers and fractions, but she missed long division and got New Jersey state history but not US history. And no science, she says proudly. Her dad didn’t put up with nonsense and lies. She did like the creationism museum they went to once, with the church group, even though the church group wasn’t good at answering questions.

She tells them proudly she never had vaccines because they’re poison, that she’s been really healthy, and the last time she had to see a doctor was when she broke her arm when she was six. She got through measles okay last year. Dr Thompson and Ms Jackson exchange looks over Taylor’s head that are the responsible adult equivalent of scheming faces. Sometimes when she runs, she can’t catch her breath, but that’s okay because girls don’t really need to run, do they?

Taylor looks at Barbara when she says that, and it breaks Barbara’s heart. “Girls are as strong as boys,” she says. “Sometimes we’re stronger. Do you know who Katie Ledecky is?”

Taylor shakes her head. 

“She’s one of the fastest swimmers in the world. Faster than Michael Phelps.” Barabara isn’t sure if she’ll get that reference.

Taylor stares at her, uncomprehending.

...Apparently not. “When we’re done, go ask Hood and Nightwing who’s stronger, Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman,” she orders. “You know who they are?”

Taylor, who at least has some sense of the world, nods.

* * *

She plots out four routes for them to get back to Jason’s place and Fishburn towers, trying to avoid the police patrols. Jason will take Taylor on his bike, dressed in a Cass-sized helmet and jacket liberated from Tim. It’s not perfect, but better somewhat safe than sorry. Dick will follow on the roof tops.

It’s a good plan. It would be a good plan. 

They do fine as they start to head further away from Waterfront park, driving carefully through the slowly gentrifying business district to a gentrifying residential neighborhood. It's less than two miles as the crow flies… or as the Nightwing flies as the case may be. Gotham’s warren of streets make it further for Jason on his bike. Even without traffic, he needs to be careful through the sleeping neighborhood.

Things are going fine, until Hood turns on to Broad. It should get him away from the Park. It should be fine.

There’s a line of cars parked across the middle of the street: white trucks and a few SUVs. Barbara doesn’t know how they got there. But, she also knows she has a blind spot. And she was tired. And wasn’t looking. 

...And now there’s a roadblock.

“Wing, I need you at fifteenth and Broad, yesterday.”

“On my way!”

She doesn’t look through his camera, but from the way his tracker is moving erratically, she can only assume he’s enjoying his free run a bit too much.

He rolls to a stop on one of the rooftops overlooking the intersection. That tuck-and-roll move has always been one of his favorites.

A man steps forward from the crowd. In the shadows from the street lights, his hair is washed in a brassy silver. A bruise is rising on his cheek. “I’ll take my daughter, now, Red Hood.” The voice rings out clear and crisp in the night air.

Hood keeps his eyes trained straight ahead. “Do you want that, kid?”

She shakes her head. 

“Do you want to fight? Or do you want to run?” His hands are probably settled on the holsters on either hip. Up above, Nightwing has a grapple ready, he’ll take his cues from Jason and the kid.

“Go.” She says, her voice tiny in the helmet. “I want to go.”

“Let’s go,” Hood says, low. “Hang on tight!”

He pivots the bike in a move that she knows comes from long practice, and heads out. Nightwing drops onto the street with another one of those tucked rolls and absorbs momentum when you decide to drop from the sky.

“Hi boys, ready to play?”

The men stare at him and the disappearing motorcycle. Most of them jog back to their cars, but not enough. The blond stands there and stares. “You!”

“Me,” Nightwing agrees. “That a problem, Stewart?”

“Not one I can’t fix.”

Lord save them all from cliched villains.

* * *

“We’ve got lunch, and the commissioner left,” Jason leans in the doorway of the bedroom. “So, umm…”

“What about Taylor?” She asks, nervously. She doesn't want Taylor to know her identity. She’s not sure if she doesn’t want Taylor to put together the pieces that Dick Grayson has a girlfriend in a wheelchair and Nightwing has a girlfriend who uses a wheelchair and a vendetta against bad cops, or if she’s enjoying being Batgirl and no one else. Life was simpler when she was Batgirl. Simpler and lonelier, and worse.

“Showering. Dr Leslie okayed it, and Dickface stopped by Target to get her some clothes.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“His taste isn’t terrible,” Jason admits. “The frosted tips were a bit much.”

“It was the early aughts, give him a break.”

Jason makes a face under his domino, scrunching up his nose. “So, piggy back, or do you want the chair?”

“Chair,” she decides quickly. “Always chair.” 

“You owe me five bucks.” Dick appears with her chair.

“Shut up, Dickwing.” 

All is well, until they realize that the chair won’t fit through the doorway with her in it. “Fucking shithole,” she complains.

“I’ve got butcher block counters and a gas range!” This is 1000% one of Jason’s favorite places, and where he probably sleeps when he’s not holed up in the Narrows. No other way he would defend it so stringently. 

“Inaccessible is a shithole, butcher block or not,” she reminds him as they gather around the table.

Dr Thompson looks at them. “Are you going to take off your masks like civilized people?” 

“Com’on Dr Leslie, you know we’re not civilized,” Jason complains, reaching for a napkin and a knife and fork for his curry.

She shakes her head, but doesn’t push it.

Ms Jackson comes back, and studies the food. “I’ve got a place for her, a family outside Gotham city limits. I’ll take her there tonight, after we go to the clinic. It’s not forever, but it’s a start.”

Nightwing goes and gets a backpack and a duffle bag. “In case she needs it.” 

Jason drops the batter book she’s been carrying everywhere on top. “Just in case.”

Ms Jackson smiles. “That’s kind of you.”

Dick shrugs. “We’ve been there. All of us. Hopefully this helps.” 

Ms Jackson shakes her head. “Someday, I’m going to figure out who you assholes really are.”

If he wasn’t wearing a domino, Babs is pretty sure Jason’s eyebrows would be waggling like in a damn story.

“Oh, and since you three are so helpful, here’s a tip: there was some mention at DFCS that they’re looking for a couple of Gotham vigilantes in connection to a missing kid.”

* * *

She hears the deadbolt slide into place, and Nightwing drops down on the couch beside her. Barbara lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“Hi Batgirl,” he says, leaning down for a kiss over the back of the couch. Yes, they once tried kissing like Spiderman and Mary Jane. yes, it was weird. Yes, he still does it anyway.

“Boy Blunder.” She kisses him back.

“Let’s go to bed?” He holds out a hand, and she transfers into her chair.

“Gladly.” They head toward the bathroom. “You make it home safe?”

“I think so.” He drops a kiss on her forehead, and starts stripping. “I don’t think they followed me.”

“Course not.” She spits. “Ready to take me to bed, Boy Blunder?”

“Always, Batgirl.”

They go and settle into her bed as the sky starts to creep toward the early gray of dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> Because _I_ think I’m funny... one of the most popular commercial database companies is Oracle. Postgres is an open source solution (competitor) to Oracle but requires more in-house expertise. Both operate on SQL, but Oracle (database) also works with Java. I’d like to think that given her academic background, Barbara prefers open source interpreted languages (R, Python, Julia) to proprietary interpreted ones (SAS, Matlab, Stata) or open source compiled languages (FORTRAN, C, C++). Probably because the proprietary ones used in academia either suck and/or are pretty restrictive. Remember kids to tip your code creators with citations and coffee.
> 
> Questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions about what to do with all my free time now I’m not worrying about the vote count in multiple states welcome!


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